Secretary of the Interior
Bruce Babbitt rescinds former Secretary Lujan's approval of the Ward
Valley land sale to California and orders the U.S. Bureau of Land Management
(BLM) to prepare a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS).

August 1993

Secretary Babbitt
asks California Governor Wilson to hold one more hearing to help him
in his decision on the Ward Valley land sale. Babbitt states his intention
to reach a decision by the end of 1993.

September 1993

On September 16th,
the California Department of Health Services (DHS) issues a license
to US Ecology, Inc. to construct and operate a low-level radioactive
waste (LLRW) disposal facility at Ward Valley (pending the federal land
transfer) and certifies the Environmental Impact Report. Governor Wilson
agrees to Secretary Babbitt's request to hold one more hearing on environmental
issues related to the Ward Valley land transfer.

On September 24th,
BLM issues a very favorable Final SEIS which includes the following
findings:

"The
results of these independent studies and the radiological pathways
analyses, reflected in the joint BLM and DHS Final EIR/EIS, indicate
that the Ward Valley facility will meet or exceed all environmental
health standards with no contamination of ground or surface water."
(Final SEIS, page 11.)

"Waste form and packaging requirements, waste classification limits,
thick trench covers and runoff systems, facility operating procedures,
and other factors will combine with the 650 foot depth to protect
the underlying ground water from contamination for the duration
of waste hazard at the facility." (Final SEIS, page 12.)

October 1993

Ward Valley opponents
challenge the license and EIR certification in state court in Los Angeles.

November 1993

Secretary Babbitt
cancels the hearing he requested in August. He offers the excuse that
opponents' lawsuit includes a challenge to the hearing procedures used
by the DHS in its licensing process and that the trial court might therefore
order DHS to hold hearings even more comprehensive than the hearing
requested by the Secretary. This excuse ignores the ruling of a state
appellate court the previous May, in another lawsuit, upholding the
DHS hearing procedures. Circumstances suggest the hearing was canceled
by order of the White House at the request of California Senator Barbara
Boxer.

Interior Secretary
Babbitt asks the Board on Radioactive Waste Management of the National
Academy of Sciences to review criticisms of the Ward Valley site in
the so-called "Wilshire Report" and to issue a report after December
1, 1994.

1994

At various times in
1994, the (Democratic) Chairmen of several congressional committees
and subcommittees with oversight criticize the Clinton administration's
handling of the Ward Valley land conveyance. They include Sen. J. Bennett
Johnston (LA), and Representatives Philip Sharp (IN), Richard Lehman
(CA), and John Dingell (MI). Mr. Dingell, who was chairman of the House
Energy and Commerce Committee, wrote to the President on May 2, 1994:
"I have found the actions of the administration, with respect to the
California siting process, troubling. The purpose in establishing the
current system was to avoid the intrusion of the federal government
in the siting process."

May 1995

NAS issues report
highly favorable to the Ward Valley site:

"…the
potential transfer of contaminants through the unsaturated zone
to the water table is highly unlikely. In the report we discuss
a number of aspects of this potential transfer, and in none of
these cases could we find a likely mechanism that would allow
contaminants to reach the water table.…We believe it highly unlikely
that significant amounts of radioactive material from the site
would reach the ground water or the Colorado River."

Secretary Babbitt
says land sale would be in the public interest and states his intention
to sell the land to California:

"I've
never believed that being an environmentalist means saying "no"
to necessity. The National Academy of Sciences says it's safe,
so I'm prepared to go ahead with it."

The majority report
(17 of 19 members of the panel) recommend additional testing and monitoring
during construction and operation of the disposal facility. Two members
file a minority report recommending additional testing prior to the
land transfer. (Both dissenters were nominated to the panel by Ward
Valley opponents.)

The Department of
the Interior (DOI) requests a "binding commitment" from the State of
California to implement recommendations of the NAS plus new DOI requirements
with DOI to have permanent enforcement role with recourse to the courts.
State resists these requirements because DOI lacks both expertise and
statutory basis to usurp California's agreement state authority or the
authority of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to regulate
radiological health and safety under the Atomic Energy Act.

August 1995

U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service issues a second Biological Opinion concluding that construction
and operation of the Ward Valley disposal facility "…is not likely to
jeopardize the continued existence of the desert tortoise or result
in the destruction or adverse modification of critical habitat."

September 1995

When DOI refuses to
yield on its demand for an enforcement role at Ward Valley, Governor
Wilson asks Congress for legislative conveyance of the Ward Valley land.

October 1995

Deputy Interior Secretary
John Garamendi issues a press statement saying that California cannot
be trusted ("'Trust us' will not suffice") and warning against "legislative
end runs."

California appellate
court upholds the Ward Valley license and certification of the EIR saying
that opponents' claims are "without merit."

November 1995

Congress places Ward
Valley conveyance in Budget Reconciliation Bill.

December 1995

President Clinton
vetoes the Budget Reconciliation Bill. Regarding Ward Valley, the President
— ignoring the extensive regulatory scheme including federal and state
regulations and state license conditions — says the land conveyance
would be "without public safeguards."

Energy Secretary Hazel
O'Leary, responding to a request from Senator Barbara Boxer that the
Department of Energy (DOE) and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
perform tests at the Ward Valley site, says "We believe the State of
California, in its licensing role as authorized by the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, should determine how to implement the National Academy of
Sciences recommendation."

Interior Deputy Secretary
Garamendi announces that a decision on the sale of the Ward Valley lands
will be postponed until after the November election. Interior asks DOE
and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory to undertake further
testing at the Ward Valley site and says it will prepare yet another
Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. All this will take one
year. Deputy Secretary Garamendi argues that recent findings of radionuclide
migration (tritium and carbon-14) at the Beatty, Nevada disposal facility
require the new SEIS and additional testing. But the Director of the
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) says, in a letter (February 14, 1996)
to the California State Director of the BLM:

"Because
of the differences in waste-burial practices at the Beatty site
compared to those intended for the Ward Valley site, and the previously
mentioned uncertainties about the transport mechanisms at Beatty,
extrapolations of the results from Beatty to Ward Valley are
too tenuous to have much scientific value." (Emphasis added.)

The San Jose Mercury
News editorializes: "The federal government is obstructing years
of careful planning by the state and is perpetuating a huge waste of
public funds. It is perpetuating scientific ignorance in a cynical effort
to study the War Valley dump to death."

The State of California
vigorously argues there is no legal or public policy justification for
a new SEIS.

Senator Frank Murkowski,
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, and
seven Congressmen, including five from California, ask the U.S. General
Accounting Office to investigate Interior's handling of California's
Ward Valley land purchase request.

March 1996

California Department
of Health Services requests "...the participation of DOE on a Ward Valley
environmental monitoring committee to be established by DHS once the
land is transferred to the state."

Interior ignores prerogatives
of USNRC and the Congress and suggests that utility waste be stored
at a decommissioned nuclear power plant in California.

May 1996

DOE agrees to play
the role scripted by Interior. DOE says Secretary O'Leary's policy statement
of December 15, 1995, "We believe the State of California, in its licensing
role as authorized by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, should determine
how to implement the National Academy of Sciences recommendation" applies
only under the Low-Level Radioactive Waste Policy Act. If Interior requests
assistance under the Economy Act or "work for others" provision of the
Atomic Energy Act, DOE can provide a different policy which offers assistance!
DOE also announces that neither it or the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory
will be responsible for interpreting data resulting from analyses of
samples taken at the site.

Interior announces
a 45-day scoping period and scoping workshops for preparation of a new
SEIS. Governor Wilson issues press release criticizing Interior: "The
standard for determining if an SEIS is needed is whether significant
new information or significant new environmental impacts have surfaced
which had not been previously considered. The Ward Valley land transfer
has already been thoroughly analyzed with complete public input through
the initial 1991 and supplemental 1993 Environmental Impact Statements,"
said the Governor.

In a memo to the BLM,
the USGS says it will not write Interior's new SEIS nor play a major
role in the new field tests.

In a letter to the
California Congressional delegation, the Presidents of the California
Institute of Technology, Stanford University, the University of California
and the University of Southern California support the Ward Valley land
conveyance legislation introduced by Senators Murkowski and Johnston.
Similar letters of support are sent by the Presidents of the University
of Arizona and the University of South Dakota.

June 1996

Energy Secretary Hazel
O'Leary, while in California, publicly chides Interior for "inappropriately"
volunteering DOE to do tests at Ward Valley and reiterates her view
that, without a request from the State of California, DOE could not
perform the tests that Interior wants done.

December 1996

Interior releases
a Request for Proposal for a private firm to prepare the new SEIS for
Ward Valley.

January 1997

Governor Wilson announces
that California will proceed to do additional tests at the Ward Valley
site which the NAS had recommended be done during construction and operation
of the disposal facility. The Governor also announces that California
will file a writ of mandate in federal court in the District of Columbia
to secure the land transfer. US Ecology announces that it will also
seek to obtain the land sale in federal court and that it, in addition,
it will sue the Department of the Interior in the Court of Contract
Claims to recover its costs on the Ward Valley project.

The Department of
the Interior surprises DHS, US Ecology, and the Sacramento office of
the BLM when it advises California that existing permits at Ward Valley
are not adequate to carry out new tests. BLM says that DHS will have
to request a new permit and also request the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Services to undertake another (the third) biological opinion on the
desert tortoise.

June 1997

DOE refuses to acknowledge
California's request for technical assistance with additional tests
at Ward Valley. DOE officials confirm former Secretary O'Leary's policy
has been reversed. Under the new policy, the Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory may not respond to the State's request for technical assistance,
it may only work for the Department of Interior at Ward Valley.